Some of you may know that Iíve had a couple of health
speed-bumps recently. The most recent of which is a broken arm on Sunday. Please
forgive me if my replies arenít as quick as I usually like them to be. Karen
tells me weíll have to delay our samba lessonsÖ again!

Iíll be selecting my cast color tomorrow and Iím
thinking of a nice tartan plaid for clan McGrath. Iíll be posting a virtual cast
signing party on Facebook once the cast is on. All I ask is keep it positive and
pithy. I wonít have the time to reply to any well-wishers, but know that I
am grateful to all of you.

Replacement Request Not Available in eBay Returns Flow until Mid-October

This week eBay announced that sellers offering replacements must manage this through eBay Messages rather than through the returns system. Buyers will not
be able to request a replacement during the normal returns process now until the "improved system" is implemented in mid-October.
Click here to read the announcement

USPS First Class Parcel Rate to Increase August 28, 2016

First Class Parcels weighing 1-3oz are going up in price from $2.45 to $2.62 ($2.60 with eBay Labels) on August 28, 2016. If you sell jewelry, prints, or
other light-weight items, you might check if this affects you and adjust your pricing accordingly. $0.20 might not seem like a lot, but it does add up.

Amazon Unveils Amazon One - Its First Branded Cargo Plane at Seattle SeaFair

Amazon is adding 40 cargo planes to its delivery team to meet the demand of Amazon shoppers everywhere. This is great news for FBA sellers because it
increases the likelihood of same-day and next-day delivery for customers with Amazon Prime. Amazon has always been careful to meet their delivery time
goals, and is one reason shoppers often buy there versus eBay or other sites. This is great timing as we move into the latter part of the year and the time
when online buying really ramps up for the holidays. Full article
here.

Find new products to sell.
Check current prices, sales rank, competing offers, and customer reviews by using text search or by scanning items.

Receive new pricing opportunities.
Stay competitive on the go when listings are close to the buy-box price, have low sales conversion, or are eligible for a fee promotion.

Have a question about selling on Amazon?
Use the app to contact Seller Support.

In other Amazon news, they're repeating their free removal promotion. Here's what they sent me:

You may have slow-moving or low-selling inventory. Starting today, August 4, 2016, FBA is waiving fees for any removal order for inventory that is
currently in U.S. fulfillment centers.

This promotion ends after August 14, 2016, after which time normal removal-order fees will apply.

I wanted to mention that I've updated
The Complete Amazon Marketing System.
This is a great resource if you want to sell on Amazon, but don't know how to
get started. The system is a two-volume printed book. You also get a ton of
bonus items and of course there's 90-day guarantee.

With the new increases in postal rates it's important to save money wherever
possible. So you'll be glad to hear that
Stamps.com
is repeating their special offer for my readers. You can get $5 worth
of free postage just for trying their service.Click here
to see the special offer.

Did you know that 46 states start their fiscal year on July 1st? That means that as of July 1st some new tax laws went into effect.
The folks at Avalara have put together a useful guide that goes over these changes. What especially caught my eye is the section on state nexus laws.
You can download the guide here.

As the summer slow season winds down, it's important to start looking towards the holidays and your inventory for the 4th quarter. Right now,
back to school selling is in full swing. This can be a great way to rebrand certain items, run an eBay store sale, or even pick up supplies for your own
business use, or for retail arbitrage to list after the sales are over. There's always someone who has to have that hot new Pokemon Go backpack and didn't
get it until a few days before school.

The next big sales event is Halloween. Stores are popping up all over the country now and you can take advantage of sales to have inventory ready for
last-minute shoppers. Amazon Prime is consistently a parental favorite for last-minute "oops my kid needs a costume" shopping. It's worth going to stores
that carry costume-related pieces and see what is on clearance now. A few years ago when Pirates of the Caribbean was the previous year's big thing I
wandered into the Disney Store looking for whatever might be on sale. I found Jack Sparrow wig/beard combos in the clearance section for under $10 each. I
bought all of them and sold them closer to Halloween for $40 a set. I didn't go in looking for that item, but I turned a nice 300% profit on what I found.

September is a good time to visit Design Marts and Wholesale Merchandise Marts because they are bringing out Christmas inventory. Most of these places are
not cash and carry. You will place an order now for delivery closer to the holidays. It pays to go now to get in on the deals and inventory before others
snap it up.

It's almost impossible not to have heard about the recent phenomenon that is Pokemon Go. My 10 year old granddaughter has become just as enthralled with
Pokemon now as her parents were 15-20 years ago. Video games come and go, but this one is different. It requires people to get out of the house and go
walk, search out Pokemon in the wild, and visit Pokestops at various locations around their area (most of which are artwork or businesses). What does that
mean? It means people are getting out and congregating in easy to find locations. I have a 3-foot rule. Anyone who comes within 3 feet of me learns what I
do. Pokemon Go players, for the most part, are social and willing to chat at Pokestops. Learn about the game, play with your family (you might get addicted
to it too) and get out there and meet other people. It is a great way to network, and to talk about what you do, especially if you find yourself selling
Pokemon Go themed items (hint: Team Mystic is Blue, Instinct is Yellow, and Valor is Red). If you have a bricks and mortar store you can run sales for
Pokemon players to entice them into the store. I've seen stores offer 10% off for anyone who showed their Pokedex (their caught Pokemon in the game). I saw
a bar offer a free beer to anyone who put up a Lure at their Pokestop (Lure's attract Pokemon to that location for 30 minutes, and consequently attract
Pokemon Go players to that location too). Get creative! Pokemon Go is creating predicable foot-traffic in areas that never really got it before. So whether
you're a bricks-and-mortar location or online-only, you can harness the predictable nature of people congregating in certain areas to increase your
visibility and sales.

One of the great features of WordPress is the availability of free plugins. However, when a plugin goes bad it can crash your whole site. Just how do
you pick a good plugin?

Maybe you found a plugin recommendation in a forum. Perhaps you were researching plugins at WordPress.org and see one you want to try. Either way, you've
probably got some questions. How can you tell if it's worth the effort of testing the plugin on your site? More importantly, how likely is it that the
plugin will mess up your blog or website?

For example, say that you're concerned your site has been hacked and infected with malware. (Yikes!) You'd like a plugin that will scan your site and help
you with deal with the issue. Go to plugin area of WordPress.org and type "malware scan" into the search box. One of the plugins matching those keywords
will be Sucuri.

This simple box gives you a lot of valuable information.

Last Updated
- Look for a plugin that's been updated within the last year. Numerous problems can occur with plugins that aren't actively maintained. There could be
security problems. There might be compatibility issues with WordPress software.

Rating
- What sort of rating do people give the plugin?

Active Installs
- Just below the number of stars is the number of active installs for the plugin. In other words, this is the number of people using the plugin. I don't
know about you, but I don't like being anyone's beta tester. I start getting interested in a plugin at about 750 active installs.

Once you find a plugin that's been updated within the last year, has a good rating and a large number of active installations you're going to go to phase
two of your investigation. Click through to the plugin's page on WordPress.org. Read about the plugin. Does it have the features you want? Is the
description written in a user-friendly way?

In the case of the Sucuri plugin, there are several videos showing how the software works. The language is professional. (It's clear that these people mean
business!) However the text isn't overly technical. That means that you won't need a computer science degree to understand the documentation provided for
the plugin.

Then I take a look at the support forum for the plugin. To see that information, click on the Support tab at the top of the page or on the View support forum button on the right side of the plugin page. Then look at the problems that people have with the plugin. How often are
questions answered and problems resolved?

Now that you've done some investigation you'll have a good idea about what the plugin does, how reliable it is, how easy it is to work with and what sort
of assistance you can expect from the plugin developer. You've gathered the information needed to pick out a good WordPress plugin.

Marsha Perry is a website developer specializing in helping small business owners with WordPress sites. Her specialty is providing customized website
services in a cookie-cutter world. You can
sign up for her free WordPress Tips & Update Guide at her website.

If you have been selling on eBay or Amazon for a while, you probably already know most of this, but I get questions from new sellers often enough that I
know there is some confusion out there. So here is an article that explains the basics.

With the millions of products available, how does a seller keep track of the inventory? In the past, businesses hire employees who manually track
merchandise causing significant costs in terms of money and time. Good thing, the advent of bar codes had begun.

Bar codes, or technically called, Global Trade Item Numbers (GTIN's), are unique product identifiers, which make obtaining product information
across different databases and platforms easier. It's a symbol, which, when scanned, will show the unique attribute of a product.

All legitimate UPC number come from the GS1 Database and Service. You must use codes that originated from GS1. If you buy bar codes from a company that is
not sourcing from there - Amazon will reject them when you try to create a listing. All of the companies mentioned below get their codes from GS1.

With bar codes, operational efficiency is realized because these entail faster and more accurate recording of information-- so time is saved, errors are
reduced and all in all, costs are cut. Aside from these, putting barcodes in your products would enable you to meet business regulatory requirements, since
agencies and online selling platforms such as Amazon, now require unique identifiers in products.

Bar Codes in Amazon

As a general rule, you need a UPC code in order to sell a product in Amazon. Amazon requires this in order to reduce, or even eliminate duplicate product
listings and incorrect search matches, and because items with barcodes are more efficient to receive and ship to customers. So far, there are five main
types of barcodes used in Amazon:

International Standard Book Number (ISBN)-- This is found in books, and can come in both 13 and 10-digit numbers.

Universal Product Codes (UPC's)-This code system was developed in the United States and has been widely used in North America, UK, Australia and
New Zealand

European Article Number (EAN)-This is a superset of the UPC system, and is used worldwide for products that are sold at retail point of sale.

Japanese Article Number (JAN)-This is what product identification numbers in Japan are called.

Amazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN)-Amazon assigns its own version of barcodes to items that are uploaded into their inventory. This is a
code system that is unique to the Amazon marketplace. If you know the ASIN of an item, you can type it into the Amazon search box and it will come
up.

Amazon requires a UPC (or EAN) (but not the actual bar code artwork, number for almost any product you list on Amazon. If you want to sell an item that
does not have a UPC number, or if you are creating a unique item such as a bundle of products, then you will need to purchase a UPC number. Note - If you
are creating an item on Amazon that requires you to purchase a UPC number, you only need the number - not the actual bar code graphic. This is because you
generate your own bar code label when you create a shipment to Amazon. That label identifies both the product and who it belongs to so Amazon knows who to
pay when the item sells.

eBay does not currently require a UPC or ISBN, but they are encouraging sellers to use them to make your products easier to find. And them plan to make
them mandatory soon.

How to Obtain Bar Codes

Ideally, barcodes are integrated into the design of your item, so if what you will be selling is not yet manufactured, then you may want to coordinate with
your UPC vendor so that the product identifier will be incorporated with the design. But if your product is already manufactured, then you can still easily
obtain bar code labels.

Bar codes help you achieve operational efficiency, plus, it allows you to sell in one of the world's busiest online selling platforms.

Seller SKUs

SKU stands for Stock Keeping Unit and it's a number that you generate to help you keep track of your inventory. There are several systems to create and
track SKUs. Here is one way I do mine:

The first letter stands for the category of product - J for Jewelry, B for Books, K for Knives and so on.

The next letter is the month I bought the item and listed it on eBay or Amazon, so a SKU that started with B3 would be a book I sent in March.

Next I put the cost of the item. I use the simple "paintbrush" code. Paintbrush is a ten-letter word with no letters that repeat, so each letter
stands for a number. A SKU that started out B3PNH would be a book, I sent in March that cost me $1.40. Then I usually come up with some type of
abbreviation to identify the product. So if the book was Tom Clancy's Hunt for Red October the code might be B3PHH-RO. The RO would stand for Red
October. (Some other ten-letter words with no repeating letters include: Cumberland, springvale, pathfinder, monkeyspit, motherland, crazywomen and
falconview).

If you tend to sell a lot of items from one supplier, another way to go is to use the initials of the supplier and the part number of the item. So for my
Novobead jewelry, I might use NB4105. The advantage of this is that I can search the term Novobeads in my Amazon inventory and the SKUS will come up in
order. So if I sort by quantity, I can see which beads I am out of or low on stock and I have a nice list with the part numbers to place on my order sheet.
See image below:

The 6th column is the quantity I have on hand. So if I want to place an order with my supplier, I just use the SKU number without the letters NB
as that is the manufacturer's part number.

Cracco Jewelry
is handmade by jewelry expert in Brazil and has been on the market for 30 years. The company carries between 5,000 and 10,000 different jewelry designs,
including bracelets, earrings, pendants and necklaces, for children, teens, ladies and men. Ladies' pieces in general and earrings in particular make up
the largest proportion of stock.

Please Note:
Some of the products and
services mentioned in this website, in articles, banner ads and
newsletters and blog posts are for products and services for which I
earn a referral fee or commission. We always evaluate anything we
recommend very carefully and each year we turn down literally dozens
of opportunities to recommend products or services where we can earn
a commission. Even though we earn a fee on some of our
recommendations, we only recommend products and services that we
feel will deliver good value and with rare exceptions, they all come
with a money back guarantee.